Monotheism and Polytheism in Hinduism

The paradox of one and many

When most people think of Hinduism, they picture a pantheon of gods. Ganesha with his elephant head removing obstacles. Shiva in meditation at Mount Kailash. Vishnu reclining on the cosmic serpent. The goddess Durga riding her lion into battle. Walk into any Hindu temple and you’ll encounter not one deity but dozens, each with their own iconography, mythology, and devoted followers.

Yet ask a Hindu scholar about the nature of divinity in their tradition, and you’ll likely hear something quite different. They might tell you about Brahman, the single ultimate reality underlying all existence. They might quote the Rig Veda’s declaration that “Truth is one, the wise call it by many names.” They might explain that all those gods and goddesses you see are merely different manifestations of the same divine principle.

So which is it? Is Hinduism monotheistic or polytheistic? The answer, as with most things in this ancient tradition, is both more complex and more interesting than a simple binary allows.

The framework doesn’t fit

The very question of whether Hinduism is monotheistic or polytheistic reveals more about the questioner than the questioned. These categories, monotheism and polytheism, emerged from the Abrahamic religious traditions and the Greek philosophical discourse that helped shape Christian theology. When we try to apply them to Hinduism, we’re forcing a rich and nuanced tradition into boxes designed for something else entirely.

The word monotheism comes from the Greek monos (single) and theos (god). It describes belief systems centered on one supreme deity who created and governs the universe. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the classical monotheistic faiths, each proclaiming variations on the theme of one God, indivisible and supreme.

Polytheism, from the Greek poly (many) and theos (god), describes traditions that acknowledge multiple divine beings, each with their own spheres of influence and power. The ancient Greeks worshipped Zeus, Athena, Apollo, and the rest of the Olympic pantheon. The Romans had Jupiter, Mars, Venus. The Norse had Odin, Thor, and Freya.

Where does Hinduism fit? It doesn’t, not cleanly. And that’s precisely the point.

The Vedic foundation

To understand how Hinduism conceives of divinity, we need to start where it started, with the Vedas. These texts, composed between 1500 and 500 BCE, are considered apauruṣeya – not of human authorship. They represent an oral tradition that existed long before being committed to written form, preserving the religious thought of the early Indo-Aryan peoples.

The earliest of these texts, the Rig Veda, presents what appears at first glance to be a straightforward polytheistic system. There is Indra, the warrior god of thunder and rain, king of the gods. There is Agni, the god of fire who carries offerings to the heavens. There is Varuṇa, guardian of cosmic order. There is Sūrya, the sun god. The text names thirty-three major deities, and hymns are addressed to each of them individually.

But even in these earliest texts, something more complex is happening. The gods are not entirely separate beings competing for power and worship. They overlap, merge, and trade attributes. Indra’s qualities sometimes blend with Agni’s. Varuṇa shares characteristics with other sky deities. The boundaries between them are porous.

Then there’s the Nasadiya Sukta, the Creation Hymn from the Rig Veda (10:129). This remarkable text doesn’t simply present another creation myth to add to the collection. Instead, it questions the very nature of creation and the divine:

Then, there was neither non-existence nor existence. There was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping?

The hymn goes on to suggest that even the gods came into being after creation, that they cannot know the ultimate source. And it concludes with words that would be shocking in a monotheistic context:

The one who is the overseer of creation in the highest heaven, He surely knows – or perhaps even he does not know.

This is not polytheism as the Greeks understood it. This is something else, a tradition already beginning to question the nature of divinity itself.

The emergence of Brahman

As Vedic thought evolved into the Upanishads (composed roughly 800-200 BCE), the concept of the ultimate reality became more explicit. The Upanishads introduced and developed the concept of Brahman – not to be confused with the god Brahmā or the priestly caste of brahmins.

Brahman is described as sat-cit-ānanda – being, consciousness, and bliss. It is the unchanging reality behind all change, the truth behind all appearances, the unity behind all multiplicity. The Chandogya Upanishad declares Tat Tvam Asi – “That Thou Art” – asserting the fundamental identity between Brahman and the individual soul (Ātman).

If everything is ultimately Brahman, what then are all those gods? The Upanishadic answer is elegant: they are real, but they are not separate from the ultimate reality. They are like waves on the ocean – distinct forms that arise from the same underlying substance. Or like different facets of a diamond, each catching the light differently but all part of the same gem.

This is sometimes called henotheism or kathenotheism – the worship of one god at a time while acknowledging the existence of others. But even this term doesn’t quite capture what’s happening. The Hindu conception is more radical: the many gods are not just tolerated alternatives to a supreme deity. They are expressions, manifestations, aspects of the single ultimate reality.

Practical polytheism, philosophical monism

Here’s where the tradition reveals its remarkable flexibility. At the level of everyday practice and devotion, Hinduism operates as a fully polytheistic religion. Families have their chosen deities (Iṣṭa-devatā). Temples are dedicated to specific gods and goddesses. Festivals celebrate particular divine stories and personalities. The mythology is rich with tales of gods in conflict, gods in love, gods intervening in human affairs.

A devotee of Vishnu (Vaiṣṇava) might believe that Vishnu is the supreme deity and that other gods are subordinate to him. A devotee of Shiva (Śaiva) might make the same claim about Shiva. A devotee of the Goddess (Śākta) might see Devi as the ultimate power behind creation. And remarkably, they can all be correct within the Hindu framework.

This is because at the philosophical level, most Hindu schools maintain that these different deities are all manifestations of the same Brahman. When you worship Ganesha, you’re worshipping Brahman in the form of the remover of obstacles. When you worship Saraswati, you’re worshipping Brahman in the form of knowledge and learning. The form is different, but the substance is one.

The Bhagavad Gita, perhaps the most widely known Hindu text, addresses this directly. When Arjuna asks Krishna about those who worship other gods, Krishna responds:

Even those devotees who, endowed with faith, worship other gods, they too worship Me alone, though not according to the prescribed way.

This is not the jealous monotheism of “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” This is an inclusive vision that sees all devotion as ultimately directed toward the same divine reality, regardless of the form it takes.

Comparative perspectives

This Hindu approach to divinity has parallels in other traditions, though often in mystical or esoteric streams rather than in mainstream doctrine. Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart spoke of the Godhead beyond God, an ultimate reality that transcends the personal deity of orthodox Christianity. Sufi mystics in Islam emphasized the unity of being (wahdat al-wujud), suggesting that all existence is a manifestation of the Divine.

But in Hinduism, this isn’t a heterodox or mystical position. It’s woven into the fabric of the tradition from its earliest texts. The Rig Veda itself declares Ekam sat viprā bahudhā vadanti – “Truth is one, the wise call it by many names” (RV 1:164:46).

Compare this with ancient Greek religion, which is often held up as the archetype of polytheism. The Greek gods were distinct personalities with their own wills, desires, and conflicts. Zeus might oppose Poseidon, Athena might quarrel with Ares. They were immortal and powerful, but they were not the ground of being itself. They did not represent different aspects of a single ultimate reality.

Or consider the strict monotheism of Islam, which emphasizes tawhid, the absolute oneness and uniqueness of God. To associate partners with God (shirk) is the one unforgivable sin. The Islamic tradition does recognize ninety-nine names or attributes of God, but these are understood as qualities of the one God, not separate divine beings.

Hinduism occupies a different conceptual space entirely. It acknowledges the many while affirming the one. It allows for personal devotion to specific deities while maintaining that these deities are all expressions of the same ultimate reality.

The trinity that isn’t

One concept that often confuses those trying to understand Hindu theology is the Trimurti – Brahmā the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. This gets compared to the Christian Trinity, three persons in one God. But the comparison doesn’t really hold.

The Christian Trinity is a carefully worked out theological doctrine that attempts to reconcile monotheism with the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are understood as three distinct persons who are nevertheless one God, sharing the same divine essence.

The Hindu Trimurti is more like a convenient categorization of cosmic functions. Brahmā creates the universe. Vishnu maintains it. Shiva dissolves it so it can be created again. But these aren’t three persons of one God in the Christian sense. They’re three major deities among many, each with their own mythologies and traditions of worship. And in practice, Brahmā has almost no cult following – there are very few temples dedicated to him compared to the thousands dedicated to Vishnu or Shiva.

Moreover, devotees of Vishnu might see Vishnu as performing all three functions. Devotees of Shiva might make the same claim about Shiva. The Trimurti is a theological construct, but it’s not central to Hindu belief in the way the Trinity is to Christianity.

The practical implications

This theological flexibility has profound practical implications. It allows Hinduism to accommodate an extraordinary diversity of practice and belief under one broad umbrella. A philosophical Advaita Vedantin who meditates on the formless Brahman and a devotional Vaishnava who worships Krishna with songs and offerings are both practicing valid forms of Hinduism.

It also explains why Hinduism has been so successful at absorbing and syncretizing other traditions. When Buddhism arose as a reform movement challenging Vedic ritualism, it was eventually reabsorbed into the Hindu fold by declaring the Buddha to be an avatar of Vishnu. Local deities and tribal gods were incorporated into the Hindu pantheon as manifestations or servants of the major gods.

This isn’t the imperialism of “our god is the only real god.” It’s more like an expansive recognition that all these different forms of worship and different conceptions of divinity are pointing toward the same ultimate truth.

So what should we call it?

If we insist on using Western categories, perhaps the best term for Hindu theology is “monistic pluralism” or “polymorphic monotheism.” But honestly, these awkward coinages don’t help much. They’re attempts to force Hindu thought into categories designed for other purposes.

It might be more useful to simply acknowledge that Hinduism has its own unique approach to divinity that doesn’t map neatly onto the monotheism-polytheism spectrum. It affirms one ultimate reality (Brahman) while celebrating many forms of the divine. It allows for personal devotion to specific deities while maintaining that these deities are not ultimately separate from each other or from the cosmic absolute.

In some ways, this makes Hinduism both more sophisticated and more accessible than strict monotheism or polytheism. More sophisticated because it recognizes multiple levels of truth and multiple valid approaches to the divine. More accessible because it allows people to approach the infinite in whatever form speaks to them most powerfully.

The farmer who prays to the village goddess for a good harvest, the philosopher who meditates on the nature of Brahman, the devotee who sings ecstatic songs to Krishna – they’re all engaging with the same ultimate reality, just through different doors.

The modern question

In today’s world, where religious identity often gets politicized, this question of whether Hinduism is monotheistic or polytheistic sometimes takes on new urgency. Some Hindu nationalists in India have tried to portray Hinduism as essentially monotheistic, perhaps feeling that polytheism carries negative connotations or wanting to emphasize similarities with Islam and Christianity.

But this misses the richness of the Hindu approach. Hinduism doesn’t need to be monotheistic to be sophisticated or respectable. Its unique vision of unity in diversity, of the one expressing itself through the many, is valuable precisely because it’s different from the Abrahamic model.

What the Hindu tradition offers is a way of thinking about divinity that embraces paradox, that holds multiple truths simultaneously, that finds the infinite in the particular without losing sight of the universal. In our increasingly pluralistic world, this might be exactly the kind of theological flexibility we need.

The question isn’t whether Hinduism is monotheistic or polytheistic. The question is whether we’re willing to expand our categories of understanding to accommodate a tradition that has always known that the divine is both one and many, that truth cannot be captured in simple binaries, and that the ultimate reality is vast enough to be approached through countless paths.

As the ancient sages understood, the truth is one. We just call it by many names.